CNN Breaking: Dean Leads For First Time in CNN Poll

[VolcanoJen]

Just reported on Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics. She reported that Dean, followed by Gephardt, have hurt Clark, and have picked up numbers from him.

Copied as quickly as possible, from my Tivo:

CNN/USAToday/Gallup National Poll

Registered Democrats Choice For Nominee Oct. 24-26

Sampling error: +/- 5 points

Dean 16%
Clark 15%
Gephardt 12%
Lieberman 12%
Kerry 10%
Edwards 6%
Sharpton 6%
Mosely-Braun 4%
Kucinich 1%

[CMT]

1. statistically a dead heat, but

the trends of late have been favoring Dean.

[AWD]

2. Wait...CNN just changed it

Apparently, John Kerry sent Judy a fax and she has now changed the numbers. Kerry leads by 8% over everybody now.

[seventhson]

4. Heh (to quote John Kleeb)

nt - but funny

[DoraFan]

5. Imploding

Man, Dean is really imploding!

Suck it Kerry!

[mzmolly]

21. He he...Laughed out looouuud at that one.

;)

[SahaleArm]

3. Lieberman.

Looks like his attack dog tactics are working, still at 12%?

[Toucano]

8. Unfathomable!

He gets booed at every debate, and people walk out of his town hall meetings.

Is this just pure name recognition?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. Yep. pure name recognition

now imagine how well he'd do if his name were only 4 letters and 1 syllable.

[StopTheMorans]

20. and he came from a state

with 600,000 people in a country where most had never heard of him :eyes: never, that is, before he ran a great campaign and brought many into politics who had been disenchanted previously. You prefer your grapes sour I'm assuming;)?

[SahaleArm]

25. When I first saw him.

I thought he was a televangelist:)?

[cally]

6. Gephardt has gained a lot

I'm very surprised by that.

[Julien Sorel]

9. He's a tremendously skilled and determined politician,

who's been a around a long time and has the support of some key interest groups. He's also done well in the debates. I'd expect him to do well, although his politics are not my cup of tea, and I think he'd be burned in a general election by the strong labor ties, and his general subservience to interest groups. But he knows how to spin a populist message, and people seem to like that.

[Julien Sorel]

7. Clark is going to have to go on the counter-attack.

Lieberman, Kerry and Dean are getting a free ride on their attacks on him, and none of them has any scruples about it as long as it works. Kucinich has no standing when he sticks up for himself; Clark has to do it now while he still does have the standing. If he doesn't they will simply run him into the ground, and a low-life like Dean will win the nomination.

He poked his finger in Milosevic's chest and said 'Enough, or I'll give you back some of your own'; it's time to do the same with these clowns.

[elperromagico]

10. Agreed

Clark has got to get in there and effing tear into his opponents.

I sometimes get the impression that he doesn't want to be President... and that bothers me.

[Julien Sorel]

13. I think he wants to be president, but I don' think he wants to

do it like others are. I think he looks at Dean, for example, and is repulsed by the dishonesty, and probably a little repulsed by the fact that it resonates with the public as it does. He spent 34 years in a culture where honesty wasn't just valued, it was a requirement; and he's having a hard time, I think, reconciling that with a game where dishonesty is rewarded. I think he simply wants to win on his own terms, but I doubt it can be done. Dean and Lieberman are about gross ambition; Clark seems to be trying to aspire to a higher level, to be his rhetoric. It's a downside of his service I hadn't anticipated -- I assumed there was a cynic in there somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet. That's what it's going to take: he's going to have to let go some of his ideals and get dirty. If he does, I think he'll be able to do it with the best of them, but he has to decide to do it first.

People have been saying Clark's 'handlers' are to blame; I think this is his choice. And I think it's a wrong one, both for him and the country.

[elperromagico]

19. Clark has a problem

which no other general running for President has ever had to face: he has to debate his opponents.

Eisenhower never had to debate Robert Taft or Adlai Stevenson, and it was probably to his benefit. He was able to ride a tidal wave into the White House based on his resume. Clark can't do that.

I like Clark a great deal; I think, of all the Democratic candidates, he would stand the best chance against Boosh in the general election. But he has to work on his stage presence and he needs to answer these attacks against him.

Politics 101: If you don't strike back when a criticism is thrown at you, it will stick. Remember Willie Horton? Dukakis had a double-digit lead over Papa Boosh, but damn it, he let that "soft on crime" accusation stick.

Clark cannot let the "pro-war," "pro-Bush" accusations stand. He's already let them stand for too long.

[dkamin]

37. I don't understand your vitriol

I'm on the fence between Clark and Dean, and the reason I've been edging towards Dean lately is precisely because I view Dean as being more "honest" than the other candidates. Unlike the others, he seems to have the gumption to say what he believes, rather than constantly waffle and sit on the fence. I don't know where you necessarily decide that Dean is dishonest, which i've seen no evidence of.

The reason I initially liked Clark was because he was outspoken in his criticism of Bush and of his opinions on the war. I agree with your assessment that it's his handlers who have toned down his message to bland rhetoric.

I'm of the camp that firmly believes that the Dems can only win in 2004 (and beyond) by articulating again what it means to be a liberal, and why we should be proud of these values. The problem with people like Daschle and Lieberman is that they, having lived in DC for too long, believe the GOP/Beltway nonsense that liberalism is dead, and that conservatism has triumphed. The GOP has only won because the Dems have capitulated. 2002 should have been a learning lesson for all of them- no more DLC crap.

[Julien Sorel]

38. Dean, a political centrist (at best), has been quite 'liberal'

with his concept of 'straight shooting.' When Clark declared, for example, Dean started attacking him as having been a 'Republican until 25 days before,' and pro-Iraqi war, both palpable lies. He also recently aired commercials in which he stated 'my opponents were for the war,' or words to that effect, despite the fact that Kucinich and Clark are among his opponents, and neither of them was for the war. He had the opportunity to say 'some of my opponents,' but chose to paint them all with the same brush. When Kucinich complained, Dean said 'I wasn't referring to you'?????? A little lame, a little late. There have been other lies as well; those are the most obvious ones.

As for Dean 'saying what he thinks,' he's actually been forced to backpeddle and 'clarify' several times, most dramatically over Israel, when he quickly knuckled under to Nancy Pelosi and the AIPAC cheerleading section, although there have been other bits as well. His 'saying what he thinks' is a calculation just like everything else he does.

Dean's entire campaign, really, is built on charlatanism. His slogan is 'empower the people,' which one would think means he has some kind of platform that would do that, but when you listen to his speeches, you find it's a word game: he defines 'empowerment' as healthcare and a balanced budget; in other words, despite his radical rhetoric, he's really no different than the other candidates.

I started out liking Dean for his pugnacity, although he was never my first choice, and like you, I thought he was straighforward. I even defended him a few times here. It wasn't until I got into the campaign a little more and saw the mindless devotion of some of his followers that the alarm bells went off, and I started looking closer. I didn't like what I saw, and more importantly, didn't see; ymmv.

[59millionmorons]

27. yes and no

Yes he may have to go on the attack. But he is just coming back from his big bounce. The same big bounce that Dean has come back from.

[StopTheMorans]

11. Clark peaked in the weeks following his announcement

now that people are getting a better look at him and his policies (or lack thereof), they are getting more hesitant about supporting him IMHO, and are looking for candidates with more experience.

[Atlant]

14. It was "the concept of Clark" that was attractive.

Now that it's "the reality of Clark", it's not quite as
shiny attractive any more.

I still think he's running for VP.

Atlant

[Julien Sorel]

17. Right.

Millions of dollars and thousands of hours, and he's 'running for VP.'

I think some people should think twice before they decide they have thought.

I also think that Dean is running to be the Democratic version of Barry Goldwater. He doesn't care if he wins the general election, he just wants to get himself some power over the Democratic Party.

[StopTheMorans]

18. I agree completely

I think the concept of having someone who could (by sheer appearance many felt) trounce the shrub on national security was attractive to many. As you said, the reality isn't as sugar-coated as the concept was to many people IMHO.

[mlawson]

22. I think that Clark AND Edwards are running for VP.

Perhaps the DNC will allow them to slug it out at the convention; perhaps the DNC will SUPERfund one of them before that, and decide the contest. We will have to wait and see.

[West Coast Democrat]

12. Sharpton & Braun Doing Well

Why is Kucinch so low? Is it because so many of his supporters are registered Greens rather than Democrats?

[JaneQPublic]

15. Gep's doing better in this poll than in the recent one by Newsweek

And Edwards is doing a tad better, too.

[mzmolly]

23. And....lookey here!

He's also on top of the latest news week poll...

[sangh0]

28. Actually, the one "on top"

is "Other/Undec."

With a name like that, he'll never win :-)

[elperromagico]

29. Who's this Other Undecided?

Looks like he/she's the candidate to beat... why haven't we heard from him/her in the debates?

[mzmolly]

32. I chalk it up to 'name recognition'

;)

[elperromagico]

34. Ahh, of course

Just like that popular Greek writer, Anonymous.

[59millionmorons]

24. MOE +/- 5

no real change

[DrFunkenstein]

26. National Polls?

How many people know anything more than a thumbnail sketch of the candidates?

Dean - the angry guy
Lieberman - the Gore guy
Clark - the General
Kerry - the vet
Gephardt - the union guy
Edwards - the trial lawyer
Kucinich - the activist guy
Braun - the lady
Sharpton - the Tawana guy

[RevolutionStartsNow]

39. Except

I think the perception of Dean is starting to turn from "the angry guy" to "the frontrunner guy" or "the popular guy", or even "the guy who had those signs up behind the announcers on ESPN College Game Day!"

He went from mostly favorable press to doubting press (when Clark announced) and back to press that seems convinced he will be among the last few standing after the primaries.

[Larkspur]

30. What? Clark losing his former station's poll!

So much for the TV persona helping Clark. He was awful last night in the debate.

He probably thought that people would be hypnotized by his 4 stars, but the early voters, like those in Iowa and New Hampshire see him for the phony he is. Pulling out of Iowa and the publicity hurt Clark and his poor showing in New Hampshire is not helping him out either. Of course, he can't compete against the Dean grassroots machine in Iowa, New Hampshire, and across the country and it's that Peopled-powered campaign of Dean's that will defeat the other 8 Dem contenders and Bush.

[59millionmorons]

31. And Dean was better

Did you see him stuttering around when DK nailed him with his lies in his new TV ad. This poll has a moe of 5 so this poll concludes nothing. Nice try though.

[mzmolly]

33. If you take all the polls into consideration.

Dean's lead is promising.

[elperromagico]

36. If I take all the polls into consideration

the history books will read "George W. Bush, President 2001-2009."

Maybe we all ought to just lay off of polls for a while.

[Zynx]

35. Kucinich came off looking like a jerk.

If anything it helped Dean because Kucinich just looked shrill and idiotic.

I still maintain this will come down to Dean and Clark in the end and as well it should.

[DrFunkenstein]

40. Deans Vs. Cockroaches

Dean 16%
Clark 15%
Cockroaches 45%
Sharpton 6%

[Zynx]

41. Well, there are a lot of cockroaches out there.

I'm glad to see that we at least have a good chunk supporting the outsiders. I will support Dean or Clark strongly for the nomination. It's a shame that they are both running because I like them both a lot. I can not support any of the senators because that vote was spineless and showed what is truly rotten with this party. We neeed drastic changes and only our outsiders can do that.